~ Where the past and present collide…

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At long last, publication day for The Girl from Ballymor has finally come around. It’s been a long wait this time, and I am longing to find out what people think of the book. Early reviews have been good – the one I posted here last and then this lovely one by Pam Norfolk in the Lancashire Post. I have been quoting parts of that one to my husband continuously since reading it yesterday!

We are currently in our campervan on a cliff top on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. A pretty spectacular location ins which to celebrate publication! We have another 4 weeks travelling before we return home, and at last I will be able to hold a paperback copy of my book.

Meanwhile, on with the next book, or rather the book after next, which is also set in Ireland though in a different time period. I’m enjoying writing this new one very much.

I’m in that wonderful, exciting, refreshing but also terrifying space between novels at the moment. I finished a draft of my last, still-to-be-titled, one over the weekend, and sent it to my editor today. There will still be plenty of work to do on it no doubt, but for the moment it is out of my hands.

Meanwhile ideas for the next novel after that are filling my mind, so although I’d planned to have a bit of a break I have spent a lot of time today scribbling notes and putting together a Pinterest board to inspire me.

There are a number of things I do when planning a novel before I start actually writing it. I’ll do them in roughly this sequence:

Scribble notes about key scenes, in a lovely new notebook of course!

Decide on names, ages etc of main characters

Draw up family trees for main characters, especially important if genealogy is to be a theme in the book

Draw up timelines for the two timelines in the novel

Build up a Pinterest board of inspiring images

Note down main areas where I’ll need to research ahead of writing, and order any necessary books

Create detailed character sheets for the main characters so that I can really get to know them

Scribble details of the main settings, draw a map or house-plan if necessary

Write a one-page synopsis for my editor to (hopefully!) approve

Write a chapter plan – two or three sentences outlining what will happen in each chapter

So although ‘the Irish novel’ has been sent off ready for the next stage (rather like a five-year old child being sent off for his first day at school), the ‘drowned village’ novel is already swilling around my head. You know you need to write a novel when you find yourself waking in the night with scenes for it playing out in full colour in your head.

It’s funny – to my readers Daughters of Red Hill Hall is considered my latest novel, but I feel as though I’m two novels on from that!

Recently I have had the pleasure and honour of collaborating with some wonderful authors of timeslip novels, to create a short (10,000 word) timeslip story. We wrote this originally for a Facebook group – the Historical and Timeslip Novels group – which has always been hugely supportive of all of us. This was our little way of giving something back. The story has been serialised in that group over the last couple of weeks, and now I can share it here for my blog readers. Click the link below to read the PDF on screen or download.

Your authors are listed below. All links are to their Amazon author pages. If you enjoy A Shortcut Through Time you’ll almost certainly enjoy their full length novels, so please do go and check them out!

We passed the story back and forth via Facebook as we wrote it, writing three sections each, to a rough plan from Anna Belfrage (although the plot did change as we went along – you can’t expect six authors not to stray off-piste from time to time!) I bet you can’t see the joins or guess who wrote what part. Please let me know what you think of this story in the comments below.

We had great fun writing this and have not ruled out writing a sequel at some stage in the future…

My publisher, Carina UK, are running a historical fiction weekend. As part of this I’ve written about what inspires me when writing the historical parts of my novel, and you can read this on their blog here .

Only a few days to go now till publication of my new book! I can’t wait for it to hit the virtual shelves!

In non-bookish exciting news, we have bought ourselves a campervan! And yes, I have called her Gertie. I don’t know why, but she feels like a Gertie and the name is going to stick.

We have hired campervans before a number of times, in the USA and in New Zealand, and enjoyed travelling around in them. Many years ago we decided that when I qualified for ‘long leave’ (my lovely company give six months paid leave after you’ve worked for them for 25 years) we’d spend the leave driving around Europe in a campervan. The big trip will be next year – April to October – so we thought we should buy the van this year, and have a few short trips in it to get used to it.

And here she is in all her glory! She is a German van, Hymer B508CL if you want the detail. She’s second hand and was imported from Germany for us by a wonderful company called Bundesvan who specialise in importing mostly German, left hand drive campers. As we’ll spend most of the time on the continent we thought left hand drive would be more convenient.

We picked her up on Sunday, brought her home and JUST managed to squeeze her into thr driveway. She’s only 6m long but quite wide, and our house has narrow gateposts designed for 1930s cars…

We have a few alterations to make – switch the internal gas supply to LPG, add a solar panel to charge up the leisure battery, add a bike rack on the back, replace the curtains which I just don’t like. First proper trip will be a fortnight in Ireland in May, but we’ll have a weekend or two away in her before then.

I’ve also been planning things like – where will I store my laptop in the van; what novel will I work on while we’re away; how will we get wifi? All important questions for a writer!

For no real reason, just that my books are selling well and I feel like celebrating, I’m running a little competition to give away the goodies in the photo below – a mug with my book covers on, a fridge magnet and a signed postcard.

I finished the first edit of my novel yesterday, and sent it straight off to my eldest son who’s my beta reader. I’m looking forward to hearing what he thinks of it, then I’ve time to make some more changes as necessary before sending it to my editor just after Christmas. Phew! It’ll be lovely to have time to start something new, before I get my editor’s comments on it and have to rewrite the whole thing, ooh-er.

Want to know what its title will be? Not sure if I should reveal that yet…Oh, go on then, you’ve twisted my arm. It’ll be called The Daughters of Red Hill Hall. It’s dual timeline, and both timelines feature the stately home Red Hill Hall, and two girls who are the best of friends at the start of the novel, until… I’ll say no more. Publication will be around April 2016 – will let you know when I have a definite date.

Anyway, after completing the novel and also sending a synopsis for the next one to my editor, I thought I’d have a few days off from writing. But I’ve sat here this evening with itchy fingers, so I wrote a guest blog post for someone else, and then this blog post. A change is as good as a rest, they say, and certainly it’s the case that writing something other than the novel I’ve been working on since the end of April feels refreshing and fun. Counting up, I realise that I’ve only spent 7 months writing this one, which is a lot faster than any previous novel. And in June I hardly wrote anything, so it’s really 6 months work. Not bad going, considering I work full time as well.

It’s good to give yourself a pat on the back now and again. Even if a minute later I’m back to the usual writerly mental state of feeling full of self-doubt and insecurity!

Over a month since I posted here. I do apologise but other things have taken priority.

My Mum had been in and out of hospital all year, mostly in. In early May I was busy trying to prepare for her discharge, which finally happened but was a disaster, and within 4 days she was back in hospital again. I realised she probably wouldn’t be able to cope in her own flat and I’d need to look for a care home… when she got better again.

But this time her chest infection did not respond to antibiotics. Mum had her 80th birthday in hospital on 26th May – we took a cake and some prosecco in, and the dozens of cards which had arrived for her to open. She enjoyed this – as much as it’s possible to enjoy a birthday while in hospital.

A few days later the hospital called me to say she’d had a very bad turn. I went to see her and was told to be prepared for the worst. My brother arrived. We spent the next 4 days at her bedside. I slept overnight at the hospital in special accommodation for relatives. Mum spent these days sometimes sleeping, sometimes awake, trying to talk to us with clearly a lot on her mind. It was hard to make out what she was trying to say but we did our best. My cousins visited, bringing Mum’s brother to see her. We all knew it’d be the last time.

Early morning on 4th June I walked across from the accommodation block to Mum’s ward, in sunshine and with the birds singing, and I knew that would be the day. Around lunchtime Mum made it clear she’d had enough, and I asked the hospital staff to stop treating her except for pain relief. Mum pulled her oxygen tube off herself.

My brother and I sat with her till the end, holding a hand each. It was the most difficult thing I have ever done, but I hope we eased her journey. She died at 4pm. She was ready to go, and had been in control of the end, and died with her children at her side. I suppose that is as good a way to go as any.

The days since then have been taken up with all the necessary practical arrangements. We have held a celebration of Mum’s life for all her friends in her local church. There’s a cremation service for family only in a few days time. I’ve begun the process of notifying companies and banks etc.

I wrote the eulogy for Mum, which was read by a family member at the service last Thursday. It was a difficult thing to write but I wanted to do her proud. This is not the place to publish the whole thing, but I’ll share this paragraph from near the end. My mum was a very special person, and will be missed by very many people.

Maureen had what you might call a butterfly brain. She’d alight on one topic of conversation, then be distracted by the pretty colours of another topic, and off she’d fly. It was sometimes a hard job to keep up with her, but we all loved her for it. She was a magpie, drawn to bright colours and shiny things. She was our ‘bird of paradise in her bright plumage,’ said one friend. She could be exasperating at times but was always upbeat and positive. She could drive you mad while at the same time you’d be full of respect for her. She would remember people’s birthdays but forget how to use her mobile phone. She would look after everyone else but not herself. She was warm and caring and an inspiration to many.

I find it hard to believe she is gone. I know it’ll get easier over time but right now I miss her immensely. I wanted to ask her opinion on how many people to cater for at her memorial service last Thursday. I wanted to phone her afterwards and tell her all about it. I want to show her all the letters and cards I’ve received. Although I had the time to say goodbye I still wish I could hold her hand and kiss her cheek one last time.

Was it really only 10 days ago that the devastating earthquake hit Nepal? It was a shocking, horrifying event, and one made even worse by the inaccessibility of many of the villages hit by the earthquake and later landslides.

I went to Nepal many many years ago, and fell in love with the place. We stayed in Kathmandu, then went to Pokhara and did some trekking in the Annapurna region. It is the most beautiful country on earth. I’m deeply saddened by what’s happened there.

So when writer Julia Williams decided to organise a charity auction in aid of Nepal, I had to do my bit. These auctions have been hugely successful in the past – in the last Authors for Japan one I actually won signed books and a critique from Julia herself!

I have offered signed copies of my two How To books. I’ll also be bidding on several other items. The auction is up and running NOW so please go and take a look, and be GENEROUS! Nepal is one of the poorest countries on earth, and boy do they need our help right now.

Here’s the Authors for Nepal Auction link. It’s being run via eBay but as far as I know, eBay are waiving their fees so ALL monies will go direct to the charity First Steps Himalaya.